NeTS: Small: A Migration Approach to Optimal Control of Wireless Networks

最近移动和富媒体应用的增长极大地增加了对无线容量的需求，使无线网络变得紧张。这种急剧增长的需求对当前的无线网络提出了挑战，并要求新的算法更好地利用稀缺的无线资源。最近开发的优化管理无线资源的算法有望显著提高性能，但需要使用成本高昂且不切实际的新功能升级网络中的所有节点。该项目为无线网络引入了一种新的体系结构范例，据此设计了最优算法，以在具有新节点和旧节点的网络中运行。这一新的范例允许优化算法与现有方案一起以增量方式部署，从而为新的控制算法提供迁移路径，并有望以增量成本显著提高网络性能。该项目开发了一种新的覆盖体系结构，用于在传统网络上实现最优网络控制算法。能够实施复杂网络控制算法的新节点将被连接到在传统网络之上运行的虚拟网络覆盖中。这项研究将回答基本问题，即哪些节点必须升级到新功能，以及新升级的节点数量和网络性能之间的权衡。该项目将开发新的路由算法，将分组从其来源发送到覆盖网络中的目的地，以及用于减轻无线干扰影响的传输调度算法。通过考虑互操作性，这些新算法将被设计为在混合了新节点和旧节点的网络中高效运行。因此，该项目将回答有关将新的控制技术引入传统网络的基本问题，并为弥合为普遍部署而开发的新技术与当今运行的网络现实之间的差距提供了一种有前途的方法。

Recent growth in mobile and media-rich applications has greatly increased the demand for wireless capacity, straining wireless networks. This dramatic increase in demand poses a challenge for current wireless networks, and calls for new algorithms that make better use of scarce wireless resources. Recently developed algorithms for optimally managing wireless resources hold the promise of significant performance improvement, but require all of the nodes in the network to be upgraded with new functionality which is both costly and impractical. This project introduces a novel architectural paradigm for wireless networks, whereby optimal algorithms are designed to operate in networks with both new and legacy nodes. This new paradigm allows optimal algorithms to be incrementally deployed alongside existing schemes, thus providing a migration path for new control algorithms, and the promise of dramatic improvement in network performance at incremental cost. This project develops a novel overlay architecture for implementing optimal network control algorithms over legacy networks. New nodes, capable of implementing sophisticated network control algorithms, will be connected in a virtual network overlay that operates on top of the legacy network. The research will answer fundamental questions about which nodes must be upgraded with new functionality and the tradeoff between the number of new upgraded nodes and network performance. The project will develop new routing algorithms that send packets from their sources to their destinations in the overlay network, and transmission scheduling algorithms for mitigating the effect of wireless interference. These new algorithms will be designed to operate efficiently in a network with a mix of new and legacy nodes, by taking interoperability into account. Thus, this project will answer fundamental questions about the introduction of new control techniques into legacy networks, and provide a promising approach to bridging the gap between new techniques developed for universal deployment and the reality of the networks in operation today.